Sometimes when you’re out in nature, nature calls. The Elkhart County Parks celebrated some new restrooms with a toilet paper cutting ceremony Friday.
The project has added four new plumbed restrooms and 11 new latrines across the county park system. The county funded the project with $4 million in American Rescue Plan grants from the pandemic.
"A latrine is an outhouse, basically, but these are fancy outhouses," said Ronda DeCaire, Elkhart County Parks director. "Hopefully reduce smell, no more brown wooden walls, no more rotting wood, and a door that locks."
DeCaire says $4 million might seem like a lot for bathrooms but some have been made accessible for people with disabilities, set on concrete pads with newly paved sidewalks and parking areas. And there was some engineering that went into replacing the holding tanks underneath the restrooms.
DeCaire, her staff, and some elected officials invited reporters to Ox Bow Park Friday, near the Fishermen’s Shelter, to celebrate the project’s completion. The 200-acre park, located about halfway between Elkhart and Goshen, draws about 250,000 visitors a year.
Of course, there was some bathroom humor. For refreshments, DeCaire offered cans of urine-colored Mello Yello and some irregularly shaped chocolate-covered donuts. They used toilet paper instead of ribbon for the ceremony.
But more seriously, DeCaire said the new restrooms qualified for the federal money because they’ll also protect water resources. She said in recent years when parks staff went to empty the holding tanks, they were filled with only solids, meaning the liquids had leached into the groundwater and the Elkhart River.
